After attending two full days of Digital Book World—as well as programming the third Indie Author day—we heard dozens (hundreds!) of sales and marketing suggestions, as well as strategic publishing advice, for publishers and authors alike. Here’s a roundup of the best takeaways.
- For influencer marketing: Give influencers editorial control to create content in a way they know their audience will respond to. When getting influencers to talk about or market your content, let them provide their followers with an exclusive discount or free promotion. Think of ways to keep the marketing going with an influencer. Keep them invested. Exclusivity breeds ownership.
- If you’re running a giveaway (ARCs or free print copies), add a handwritten note so that it seems more special—you’re more likely to get a review.
- When sharing on social media, the following things work best: images, surprising things, trends, personalization, lists, humor, inspiration, secrets, and insider tips. What doesn’t work: things that make the reader feel like they’re being sold (commercial objects, thumbnail book jackets, standard author photos, reviews).
- For those with big budgets: To gather better social media insights and identify important influencers, some publishers are using Crimson Hexagon [Editor’s note: Crimson Hexagon is now Brandwatch].
- Helpful and free SEO tools: Pete McCarthy of OptiQly recommended the Chrome extension Keywords Everywhere to help explore and understand the search keyword landscape; the SimilarWeb extension to study competing authors’/publishers’ websites; and Moz’s Open Site Explorer [Editor’s note: This service has been updated to Link Explorer] to improve your website SEO and ranking.
- To quickly develop audience marketing segments or personas: SEO expert Mike King of iPullRank recommends running your email list through FullContact. Then run the Twitter accounts surfaced from that list through DemographicsPro. You can also upload your email list to Facebook Audience Insights [Editor’s note: This tool now falls under the Meta brand] to yield measurable segments.
- For Facebook advertising: Gregg Sullivan of Sullivan + Partners highly recommended using Facebook’s custom engaged audiences for targeting—to show ads only to the people who have engaged with your page or posts recently. Also, he said that, while it’s possible use interests to target Facebook ads, it’s more of a last resort: you have to really narrow the interest audience to end up with an effective ad. He said his firm doesn’t automatically use a book cover when creating a Facebook ad, but rather focuses on a strong visual that evokes the book’s feel and appeals to the target audience.
Bottom line: During one of the last panels of the day, someone commented that the more appropriate name for Digital Book World may now be Data Book World because of the dramatic emphasis this year on data-driven sales and marketing. One of our main takeaways is that traditional publishers are becoming savvy at both digital marketing and direct-to-consumer marketing, and that they have access to enterprise-level software and services (e.g., Crimson Hexagon) that make them more effective than the solo author who rarely pays for or has access to such high-powered tools.
Editor’s note: This article is from a special Digital Book World issue of The Hot Sheet.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
